


Notes

by Koren M (CyberMathWitch)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Be_compromised Promptathon, First Meetings, Gen, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:36:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29698590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyberMathWitch/pseuds/Koren%20M
Summary: For the prompt from sweetwatersong:A minute and a half later, the soft tread of military boots on the shitty Berber carpet lets her know he’s arrived. She knows it’s on purpose because he could fucking float across the floor if he wanted to; he’s telling her he’s there. Fuck him. It’s not as if she can stab him this time for sneaking up on her.(The meeting when Clint makes a different call is not the first meeting he and the Black Widow have had.)
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16
Collections: Be Compromised Promptathon





	Notes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sweetwatersong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetwatersong/gifts).



> No beta this time. All errors are my own. Comments are love. :)

She isn't sure when she first noticed him, not exactly. There was a sense for weeks of something not right, that niggling sense at the base of her neck that someone was watching her.

He's a striking figure on the rooftop, solid angles, legs braced and bow drawn but lowered, just a shadow but it speaks to her of history and timelessness and a feral grace.

She's in the middle of convincing a broker that he wants to tell her who his source is, and it's just a flash through the window between the thunder and the lightning but she actually stumbles in the middle of a simple waltz. He asks her if she's alright and she gives him her best smile and pushes the man on the roof out of her mind. But she knows he's there, watching her. 

She starts to look for him, sees occasional glimpses, and she thinks he might be her new obsession. 

In Milan, she leaves a note in his hotel room that says: _You don't really want to kill me._

(She writes it in Russian, English, and French since she doesn't know who sent him.)

In Paris, she leaves a second note. This one says: _We could be good together._

(She doesn't necessarily mean sex. She wonders if he realizes that?)

In Kirkuk he doesn't have a room of his own, so she has to be a bit bolder. This time the note is slipped into the side pocket of his weapons bag, and reads: _You can do better than him._

(The agent they’ve partnered him with is a idiot who’s liable to get himself killed before the mission is over).

In Sofia, she finds a note in the pocket of her trench coat, cheap paper from a hotel notepad, covered in blocky but surprisingly neat print. _You don’t work with a partner._

It bites at her. She finds herself struggling between crushing the note in her hand and throwing it away, or refolding it and tucking it back into her pocket. She did have a partner, once. She thinks. Sometimes she has a sense memory of knowing her back was covered, from a distance, by a sharp mind behind sharp eyes. 

(Unless that was all just a dream.)

Toronto’s says: _I could make an exception._

In Lima she finds: _Exceptions make the rule._

Buenos Aries: _What does that even mean?_

Johannesburg: _I have no idea._

Cairo: _How long are we going to play this little game?_

Jerusalem: _Who says we’re playing?_

Jerusalem is a total clusterfuck. She gets a concussion and two cracked ribs and finds herself in the unusual position of finding an abandoned apartment in a rundown area of the city to basically curl up in a corner and lick her wounds. The concussion makes her slip in and out of consciousness. 

The second (or is it third?) time she comes to, there’s a blanket over her and several plastic bags within her arm’s reach. In it, she finds bottled water and juice, all still safety sealed, and takeout boxes of fragrant rice and some kind of cooked vegetables and chicken, and a container of broth. All of the food is still warm and seems fresh made, probably from one of the multitude of shops and vendors all over the city. The note attached says: _No, it’s not poisoned. I don’t want an unfair fight._

It should bother her more than it does that he was able to sneak up on her, to be so close without her being aware of it. Instead she feels a foreign warmth in her chest that she ought to consider dangerous and out of place. Yet, she doesn’t.

She eats the soup and drinks the water and sleeps for awhile. She wakes up and has some of the juice and rice. The food and liquid lasts her another two days and by the time she’s finished it she feels remarkably more herself.

It’s not until a week later when they’re once again chasing each other, this time through Yemen, that she realizes that once the food and blanket had appeared, she’d no longer felt exposed or in danger. Instead, she’d fallen back on that sense of being covered she sometimes only thinks she remembers.

The note she leaves in Calcutta says: _Thanks._


End file.
